


when the fever runs high

by jeeno2



Series: Reylo Fluff [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Autumn, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Wears Overalls, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Lawyer Ben Solo, Sex in a Barn, hayrides
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-01-04 22:31:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21205139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: “How long have you lived here?”“About six months,” Ben says. Only part of the story, of course; but it’s true enough as far as it goes.“That makes sense,” she says, nodding a little. “I can’t quite imagine you being from around here.”That amuses him for some reason. “No?”“No.” She’s smiling again, the tip of her tongue touching the corner of her mouth. It should be illegal, what she’s doing right now. She should be against the law.-------(In which Ben Solo is the reluctant driver of the hayride tractor on Skywalker Farms-- and Rey is the school chaperone who brings kids there on field trips.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TourmalineGreen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineGreen/gifts).

> For TourmalineGreen, who prompted: “Ben Solo is fresh out of rehab and having been fired from his job and having his finacée leave him when he returns to Skywalker Farms to handle the pumpkin canon and drive the hayride tractor, much to his dismay. But the job comes with lodging and he can’t go back to work in whatever soul-sucking field he was in before. Rey is the class chaperone who brings each grade of elementary students to the pumpkin patch. He falls in love with her. Maybe they do it in a barn who can say?” 
> 
> I modified your amazing prompt just the tiniest bit. ;) I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Also, this story is nearly complete, and will be posted in its entirety over the next couple of weeks.)

Ben’s certain he’s never seen this woman here before.

His memory isn’t what it was before the late nights and the alcohol took their toll. Even so, if he’d seen her on the farm—or, hell, if he’d seen her  _ anywhere _ —he’s certain he’d remember her. She’s like spun sugar and light as she walks across the hayfield towards the old barn, her smile breaking through the gloom that hangs heavy in the October air up here like the sunrise at dawn. Her hair is in three little buns at the back of her head, quirky in a way his logical mind can’t quite process.

She is magnificent. 

He was entirely unprepared.

“Hi,” she says, a little breathless. She smiles up at him, all dimples and white teeth, and now he’s the one who’s breathless. “Are you Mr. Solo?” 

It takes him longer than it should to realize she expects him to answer her. 

_ Great _ . He’s already halfway to making a fool of himself and he doesn’t even know her name. 

“Um. Call me Ben,” he eventually says, gripping the straps of his denim overalls just for something to do with his hands.

“Okay then. Ben.” She looks down at her shoes—navy blue ballet flats; cute and practical in the city but worse than worthless up here—before looking back up at his face. “The kids and I are here. Shall we…?”

She gestures towards the field where Ben now spends a good part of every day giving hayrides to tourists, and regretting every single bad decision he’s made in his life that brought him here.

His stomach sinks. He should have known she was with today’s field trip. Why else would she have come all this way?

“Yes,” he says, straightening a little. He adjusts the straw hat on his head—it, along with the overalls, is part of the ridiculous uniform Uncle Luke insists they all wear—and nods in the direction of his tractor. “Just wait in the parking lot. I’ll come get you in a few minutes.”

“Great,” she says. The smile she gives him is sincere, and lights up her entire face. It lights Ben up, too. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yes,” Ben agrees, hoping his face doesn’t completely betray his eagerness. “You will.”

* * *

There are only eight kids in this morning’s group, which is a good thing. But they’re younger than most of the kids who come here on field trips, which is  _ not  _ a good thing.

The younger the kids are, the more out of his element Ben usually feels. Not that he ever feels exactly  _ in _ his element here, of course. Not even on his best days.

“Everybody ready?” Ben asks the question with as much enthusiasm as he can muster. Which, admittedly, isn’t much. He’s got as much coffee in his system as he can handle without his hands shaking, but there isn’t enough caffeine in the world to keep these hayrides from being, at best, mildly excruciating.

“Cows make  _ huuuuuge _ poop,” a little boy informs him as he climbs on top of the highest bale of hay in the tractor bed. He’s missing most of his front teeth, but is grinning so broadly up at Ben it’s clear he isn’t self-conscious about it the way Ben thinks he would be if  _ he _ looked like his mouth had recently lost a fight with a flying hockey puck. 

“Is that so?” Ben asks distractedly, climbing into the driver’s seat. He thinks of Uncle Luke—who, for the time being, is both his boss and his landlord—and hopes he isn’t coming off like the pompous asshole he knows he is. Luke calls him out on it whenever he sees it—something Ben is grateful for and resentful of in more or less equal measure.

Why do people enjoy children? They’re weird, gross little creatures. Ben’s never understood the appeal. 

“It’s true,” another kid says, climbing onto the tractor bed with stubby little legs. This kid, unlike the other one, has most of his front teeth, along with the reddest hair Ben has ever seen and a whole faceful of freckles. “We saw cows pooping last week at the  _ other  _ farm.” He spreads his arms as wide as they’ll go. “It came out  _ this big _ .”

Ben doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s also starting to feel that mild tension headache he often gets at his temples whenever he has to interact with other people first thing in the morning. So he does what he usually does whenever children talk to him here:

He ignores them.

“That’s enough about poop,” the young woman from earlier—the one with the pretty eyes and the quirky hair—says, sternly, to the children. Ben can tell she’s trying to maintain a serious expression but the corners of her lips betray her amusement. She must be their teacher. She climbs aboard the bed of Ben’s tractor and sits down beside the children, and—well, whoever she is, these are the luckiest fucking kids in the world.

“I’m sorry about that,” she says to him in a low, conspiratorial voice. “They’re six. Poop is just about the most interesting thing in the world to them.”

Her eyes are the color of whiskey and honey. Her accent is vaguely British and utterly enchanting. 

Ben offers her a small smile.

“I don’t mind,” he tells her. And while ordinarily that would be a bold-faced lie, here, with her in his tractor on today’s ride, it’s actually almost true. In fact, right now, this new life of his is almost bearable. “I’ve heard worse.”

“I’m Rey, by the way.” She extends her hand, and he awkwardly turns in the driver’s seat to face her. Hers isn’t a small hand, but he’s a large man. The way his palm envelops hers when he takes it makes his stomach swoop. Her skin is so soft, and he refuses to acknowledge the little pang of regret that springs up when she pulls her hand free a moment later.

He smiles at her again. He must be setting a new personal record for smiling this morning. 

“It’s... nice to meet you, Rey.”

He steers the tractor onto the path amid the kids’ squeals and laughter. This part isn’t so bad. The driving part. It’s an entire hour where he doesn’t have to talk to anybody, or pretend he’s anything other than miserable here. It’s pretty, this far north. When he’s driving he can tune everything else out and almost enjoy it.

“How long have you lived here?” 

Ben startles a little and turns his head. The kids are babbling away happily to each other in the back and Rey is sitting much closer to the front of the tractor, and the driver’s seat, than the chaperones usually do. She looks expectantly at him, waiting for him to answer her question.

He isn’t used to answering questions anymore. Except from Uncle Luke. 

He licks his lips, and contemplates how much of the truth he should give her.

“I’ve been here about six months,” he says. Only part of the story, of course; but it’s true enough as far as it goes. 

“That makes sense,” she says, nodding a little. “I can’t quite imagine you being from around here.”

That amuses him for some reason. “No?”

“No.” She’s smiling again, the tip of her tongue touching the corner of her mouth. It should be illegal, what she’s doing right now. She should be against the law.

“Where can you imagine me living?” A dangerous question; he knows that. But he can’t help himself. The hills are rolling by and the leaves on the trees are just beginning to shed their summer greens for orange and gold. And this pretty woman is smiling at him. It makes him want to take risks. 

She pauses a moment before answering, considering.

“I can picture you in New York,” she eventually says. “Am I right? Is that where you lived before you came here?”

“That obvious, huh?” 

Her smile grows. “Yes,” she says. “Very.” 

Ben braces himself for her inevitable follow-up questions. What did he do in New York? More importantly, and the question for which he still has no easy answers: why did he leave New York and move up here, to the middle of fucking nowhere, to drive kids around on a tractor all day?

But the follow-up questions don’t come. Rey seems satisfied for now, and she sits back, looking at the scenery as the children carry on doing the annoying sorts of things kids always seem to do on these rides.

Ben waits for her to tell him what brings  _ her _ here. Vibrant people like her don’t usually happen to dying places like this. She must have some kind of story to tell, too. 

But she doesn’t offer any information about herself, and he holds his tongue.

* * *

Luke is waiting for them in the parking lot at the end of the hayride, playing the part of the jovial, patrician old farmer like he does every day with the tourists. 

His  _ Skywalker Farms _ overalls are old and worn. They suit him in a way they will never suit Ben, even if he ends up staying here the rest of his life.

“Welcome back!” Luke greets the children, shouting so he can be heard over their happy commotion. “Who wants a ghost story?”

The kids file off the bed of the tractor one by one, their giddy excitement palpable and uncontainable. They’re kinetic little monsters, all of them. Ben will never understand how his uncle holds them so easily in his thrall.

“An age-appropriate story this time, I hope?” Rey’s tone is arch but her smile is teasing and kind. This is part of the act, too. “The one about the zombies gave the second graders nightmares last week.”

“Aw, don’t steal all my fun, Ms. Niima.” Luke winks at her. “Besides—a little fear is good for kids. It builds character.”

As Rey and his uncle continue their banter Ben begins mentally going through the chores he has waiting for him in the stable. This next part of the field trip—the part where Luke, the owner and head of Skywalker Farms—interacts directly with the children—doesn’t involve him. No; Ben’s job is limited to driving tourists around and helping care for the horses.

Listening to his uncle tell corny ghost stories is above his pay grade as far as he’s concerned.

He’s just about to leave for the stables to feed Annie, the oldest, most cantankerous mare they have, when suddenly, Rey’s hand is on his arm, soft and insistent. And impossible to ignore.

She gives his bicep a gentle, unexpected squeeze he can feel all the way through his flannel shirt and down to his skin. Ben freezes, unable to move, unable to think about anything at all but the way Rey’s fingertips feel right now, pressing gently into his upper arm. 

It’s been a long time since Ben felt anything even remotely approximating sexual desire. Months. Years, possibly. But here, now, on this chilly October morning, on his uncle’s farm and surrounded by hyperactive school children, Ben wants nothing more than to get Rey Niima—a woman he only just met—someplace a lot more private. He wants to press his fingertips into  _ her  _ body. He wants to taste the shape of her smile. Learn what makes her gasp, and hear his name on her lips as she falls apart.

He has nothing to give this beautiful young woman. Not anymore, anyway. But she’s looking up at him with her gorgeous, unforgettable eyes, and oh, how he wants her to let him try.

And… she’s saying something to him, he realizes a moment too late.

He shakes his head, trying to clear it.

“Oh. I’m… um.” He swallows, and runs a shaky hand through his hair. His heart is beating a little too quickly. Her hand is still on his arm. “I’m sorry. What did you just say?”

She raises an eyebrow. “I  _ said _ , aren’t you coming with us for the ghost story?” 

He blinks at her, stupefied.

“I… hadn’t planned on it,” he says. Because they’re the first words that pop into his head and he is, above all else, an idiot.

Rey’s face falls. Or he thinks it does. But it’s likely just his imagination.

“Oh.” She drops her hand from his arm and lets it fall to her side. 

Ben wants nothing more than for her to touch him again, any way she wants to do it.

He gathers his courage. 

Because honestly? Annie can wait an hour.

“I could join you though. I guess.” He swallows. “For a little while.”

She smiles up him. “Great,” she says. And then adds, her smile turning coy, “I get scared easily.”

Ben swallows around the lump in his throat and follows everybody into the barn, his stomach in knots, unable to believe this is happening.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anon is off, and now I can say hi! it's me who is writing this fic ;)

Ben sees Rey again a few days later in  _ Maz’s,  _ Forest Hill’s only real coffee shop. 

The farm is far enough away from what passes for downtown that Ben doesn’t come here often; but it’s been raining almost nonstop since Saturday night and the paths where he takes the tourists are a mess. The grounds are more sodden, muddy leaves and puddles at this point than actual fields, which makes any attempt at a hayride more or less impossible.

When Ben woke up this morning Luke told him all his hayrides had been rescheduled for another day. That was Ben’s signal to get the hell off the farm for a few hours. If he spent an entire day cooped up with his uncle with nothing to do he’d probably end up picking a fight with the old man that he’s sure to regret later.

Rey sits at a small table near the back of the coffee shop, a mug of something hot and steaming in front of her and an open textbook on her lap. Her hair is out of its three buns today, long and flowing loose to her shoulders. But she is no less enchanting than she was the other day on the farm. She has a pencil tucked precariously behind one ear—which is such a ridiculous, endearing thing Ben’s half tempted to go over there right now and start talking to her.

Which is probably why a few moments later he finds himself standing beside her table, more nervous than he’s been around a woman since high school.

Rey—or the universe; or both—must take pity on him, because after only a few seconds of him standing awkwardly beside her she looks up from her book and greets him with a surprised smile.

“Oh,” she says. “It’s you.” She looks, sounds, happy to see him. Though that might just be his imagination. Because why  _ should _ she be happy to see him? They don’t even know each other. She nods at the seat across the table from her. “Want to join me?”

Ben clears his throat. “Yes,” he says emphatically. “I do.” He pulls out the chair with a little too much enthusiasm, cringing at the scraping sound the wooden legs make against the cheap linoleum floor. 

He sits down, and tries to cross his legs casually. But her eyes are still on him, watching him. Moving in any kind of coordinated fashion is beyond him right now.

He doesn’t think he’s ever felt more awkward and uncomfortable in his own skin.

Fortunately, if Rey picks up on his nervousness she shows no sign of it.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says. A meaningless pleasantry she might say to anyone, Ben knows that. But his stomach does a funny kind of flip all the same. “I need a study break.” She takes the pencil out from behind her ear and uses it as a bookmark before closing up what she’d been reading. Ben glances at the cover, clenching his jaw when he sees it’s a practice guide for the LSAT.

He has a nearly overpowering urge to take the book from her and throw it as hard as he can against the wall. But he doesn’t know her, and will never get the  _ chance _ to know her if she sees, right off the bat, what a fucking lunatic he is. 

He wants to ask why her she wants to go to law school. He doesn’t know why  _ anyone _ would want to go to law school. 

He decides to bring up a more neutral topic instead.

“Shouldn’t you be in school today?”

The question comes out more aggressively than he’d intended. Rey’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry. What?”

Ben shakes his head. “What I mean is—I mean, aren’t you a teacher?” It’s eleven in the morning on a Tuesday. As far as Ben knows they don’t cancel school up here just because of rain.

“Ah.” She nods, understanding. “No. At least—not really.”

“Oh. I guess I just assumed, since you were with those kids the other day, that—”

“I’m an aide for the kindergarten-through-second grade class at Forest Hill Elementary,” she explains. “About twenty hours per week. I do field trips, and help the teacher when she needs an extra pair of hands.” She shrugs. “Stuff like that.”

An image of Rey, kneeling before a small child as she patiently explains something to them, swims before Ben’s eyes. It’s an enchanting picture. Little kids, he is certain, must love her.

Everyone must love her.

“But it’s not enough for you,” Ben says. It isn’t a question. He nods at the book in her lap. “You want to go back to school. You want...” He pauses as he searches for the right words. “You want something more.”

Rey’s cheeks pinken a little. She picks up her mug in both hands and hides behind it, taking a sip.

“I never imagined I’d end up here,” she says, very quietly. It’s the only explanation she gives him. “That’s all.”

But she doesn’t have to elaborate.

He’s pretty sure he understands that feeling better than anybody.

“You can do it, you know.”

Rey eyes him. “How do you know that?”

He wants to say that anyone who can wrangle a pack of small children as well as her can do anything they set their minds to. He wants to tell her about the number of attorneys he knows who are dumber than a bag of hammers and certainly nowhere near as charismatic as she is.

“I just do,” he says instead. “You seem… very capable, Rey.”

Rey makes a dismissive noise, then picks up her mug again and takes another sip. Ben knows he isn’t imagining that blush on her cheeks when she sets it down again. 

* * *

It’s late October before Ben sees Rey on another field trip.

The weather has turned so chilly he can see his breath in the mornings when he feeds the horses. Ben has always hated the cold, and he tugs his jacket a little tighter around himself as Rey makes her way to him across the field.

She’s dressed more appropriately for early September than late October. When she reaches him, her breath coming a bit hard with cold and probably exertion—he frowns at her in disapproval.

“Where are your gloves? And your jacket?” This will not do. This will not do  _ at all. _ Rey’s slender hands are bare, and her only protection against the cold is a long-sleeved cotton t-shirt. The temperature has dropped more than twenty degrees this week. 

By the end of today’s ride everybody will be cold even if they  _ are _ dressed properly. He doesn’t even want to think of how chilled Rey will be in a few hours if she doesn’t put on some more clothes.

But Rey seems unconcerned. “I must have forgotten them, I guess.”

Unacceptable.

“You’ll freeze to death.”

Rey laughs at that, bright eyes flashing with amusement.

“I will not,” she says. “It’s forty-three degrees outside.” She swats Ben’s arm playfully. He can feel the gentle pressure of her hand all the way down to his skin, even through his multiple layers.

She licks her lips and winks at him. And because in addition to all his other failings Ben is  _ also _ some kind of terrible pervert, Ben’s eyes are drawn helplessly to her lips, to the quick swiping motion of her tongue as she wets them. Suddenly, he is bombarded by all sorts of thoughts and mental images of Rey, and the torturous sorts of things she might do to him with that sweet mouth of hers, that are wildly inappropriate for a man about to drive a bunch of kids around on a hayride to be having.

He reminds himself that he is  _ not _ a fucking teenager anymore and orders himself to get his shit together. Then he shoves his hands into his pockets, fishing around for his extra pair of gloves.

“Here,” he says, thrusting them at her. “Wear these.”

Rey stares at them. “Those are at least two sizes too big for me.”

He looks at them, then at her. They’re a little dirty, but they’ll keep her hands warm. It’s better than nothing.

“So?”

She laughs again, and if Ben has any hope of surviving this field trip she  _ really _ needs to stop doing that.

“I won’t be able to wrangle today’s lot if my hands are swimming in gloves that don’t fit.” She jerks her thumb back towards the parking lot. “There are thirteen of them today.”

Ben winces. Thirteen is a big group. “How old?”

“Second grade.”

“Ah,” Ben says. Like he has any fucking clue what second graders are like, or how they’re different from first or even sixth graders. “Right.”

Rey turns to go back to the bus, the conversation—in her mind, at least—at an end. But something about Rey showing up here unprepared for the weather sticks rankles him, and won’t let him go. The need to take care of her, to help, is nearly overpowering, even though Ben hardly knows her and none of what he’s feeling right now makes sense.

On impulse, Ben reaches out and grabs Rey’s arm before she can leave.

She freezes.

He swallows, and stares at the place where he’s touching her. The sight of his hand on her arm—protective; possessive—does something to him he couldn’t put into words if he tried. His stomach swoops, and he is reminded of the last time he rode a rollercoaster as a child. He’d had no choice that day but to put all his faith in gravity and in the engineers who’d designed the ride. It was one of the scariest experiences of his life.

Ben’s no good when he isn’t in complete control. He learned it for the first time that day at the amusement park, when he’d thrown up his lunch after getting off the ride. He learned it harder, and better, much later in life, from his time in the law—and from Snoke.

Somehow, though… this is different. He doesn’t know how he knows that, and he doesn’t know why it matters so much to him that Rey accept his help. He only knows that it  _ is _ different. And that it does matter to him, very much, that she let him try.

“Please?” he asks, in a small voice.

Rey looks down at the gloves, still in his outstretched hand.

She gives him a knowing smile.

“Fine,” she sighs, resigned. She takes the gloves. Their hands brush in the process, and his entire arm erupts in gooseflesh that has nothing to do with the cold weather.

And then, without warning, the children are upon them. 

“Miss  _ Niiiiiimaaaaaa _ ,” one of them calls out in a loud singsong.

Ben’s head turns in the direction of the voice. He realizes, too late, that his hand is still on Rey’s arm, curled possessively around her bicep. He yanks it back as quickly as if he’d been touching a hot stove. 

But the damage, it would seem, has already been done.

A moment later the entire gaggle of kids is here, dancing around them, dissolving into a riotous fit of giggles and kissing noises.

“Are you in  _ loooooovve,  _ Miss Niima?”

“Is he going to kiss you?”

Ben looks at Rey, horrified. He hasn’t hit a child since he was a child himself, and the last thing he needs right now is to be arrested for assaulting a second grader. But as he watches Rey’s eyes widen, and her face go from pale white, to pink, to a shade closely resembling a ripe tomato, the temptation is definitely there.

Ben shoves his hands into his coat pockets and bites the inside of his cheek, hard, to distract himself.

“I’ll see you at the tractor,” Ben mutters.

Rey must see something on his face that worries her. “Ben,” she says. “It’s fine. They’re only kids.”

She says more words, but Ben doesn’t hear them. He’s already pushing past her and the laughing children and stalking off towards the field.

* * *

Rey sits beside him on the hayride today.

Ben doesn’t know how she does it, has no idea how she can even  _ think _ to sit next to him right now after the merciless teasing they just received from the children. But she sits beside him all the same on the driver’s seat that’s only just big enough for the two of them. And she talks to him, asking questions about the scenery and the weather, filling up the wide open spaces around them with pretty words and the sound of her lovely, lovely voice.

It soothes something deep inside him, her voice. Her presence. Her spirit. Ben wishes there were a way to bottle it up, to keep it with him, always. A way to keep  _ her _ with him even when she isn’t here. 

And then, about halfway through the ride, she turns to him and says: “The LSAT is in a week. I’m nervous.”

Ben’s heart thuds hard, almost painfully, in his chest. His hands tighten on the steering wheel. 

“Oh?” He tries for casual, but he’s never been any good at casual. He clenches his jaw, hard, without even realizing he’s doing it.

“Yeah.” A pause. “I’ve been studying every night, but I’m worried it won’t be enough.”

She doesn’t say anything else. Ben guesses she expects him to ask follow up questions now. Things like,  _ where are you applying to law school _ ? And,  _ what do you want to do with your degree?  _

Those are the kinds of questions most people would ask.

But Ben isn’t most people. He left his inquisitiveness about the law and the people who want to pursue it behind him when he fled New York.

“I… used to be a lawyer,” he says. He stops, surprised at himself for volunteering this. He closes his eyes briefly and shakes his head. In for a penny, in for a pound he supposes. “When I was in New York.”

He doesn’t turn to look at her. He keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead. But he can feel her eyes on him all the same, watching him. 

“You gave it up?”

“Yeah.” He runs a large hand through his hair and lets out a low breath. “The law... wasn’t good for me.”

He doesn’t tell her about the endless late nights, working himself to the bone for some horrible client or other who would just as soon see him dead if it meant they’d get to save money on their next merger. Or about Snoke, dangling that promised partnership in front of him like a fucking carrot, only to yank it away again and again, every time he got close, amid entreaties to work smarter, better. Harder.

He doesn’t have the courage to tell anyone about how in the end, it was the alcohol that made things halfway bearable even as it destroyed all he had left. Luke knows, of course; he’d known it from the moment he first laid eyes on him up here six months ago after ten years of radio silence. Ben hadn’t even had to say a single word, and Luke had known everything.

He’d like to tell her about some of these things. He thinks she’d be a good listener. But his courage doesn’t stretch that far. 

Rey puts her hand on Ben’s shoulder. Soft, and reassuring.

“It wasn’t good for you?”

Her voice is quiet, but concerned. He wonders if she can hear everything he isn’t saying in his voice. Or if maybe the problems he faced at the firm are so cliché she knows what he went through without him even needing to spell it out.

“No,” he says. He shakes his head. Her hand is still on his shoulder; it is the only thing he can feel. “It wasn’t.”

They ride in silence for a while, the only sound he can hear coming from the children. They seem to be daring each other to throw small stones off the tractor to see which stone can go the farthest. But Ben ignores them, ignores everything but the cold October wind in his face, the hard grip of the steering wheel beneath his gloved fingers and the feel of Rey’s hand on his shoulder.

“I’m still going to apply to law school,” she says, suddenly. “I… had a rough childhood. I want to be able to fight for kids the way I wish someone had fought for me.”

Ben turns his head to look at her, reeling a little, both from her frank admission and by the horrific idea that Rey had once been a child who’d needed help she didn’t receive.

“You  _ should _ go to law school,” he says, his voice soft. He shakes his head. “What happened to me…” He trails off, trying to find the right words to say. “We make our own choices in this world, Rey. I’m learning that up here. And what happened to me…”

He looks at her, biting his lip. Willing her to understand.

She’s not the same as him. She would  _ never _ make the mistakes he made.

“Any kid would be lucky to have someone like you in their corner,” he adds, fiercely.

She doesn’t say anything else for a long time. She only continues to look at him, a small, unreadable smile on her lips, and starts to stroke the back of his neck with her thumb. It’s such a soothing, intimate gesture that it takes all of Ben’s restraint not to grab her up in his arms right here and now.

“Thank you, Ben,” she eventually says.

* * *

“Everybody back on the bus, please!” 

Rey’s voice carries clear and strong, cutting through the raucous din of the children. They scamper and run around, burning off the final last bits of energy before having to sit still and quiet again.

When finally the last kid is on the bus she turns to face Ben.

“I’m throwing a Halloween party this weekend,” she says. Her eyes are bright, and she’s smiling when she adds, “You should come.”

Ben’s hands clench into tight fists at his sides and his heart rate speeds up.

He swallows.

“Halloween party?”

“Yes,” she says. “With hot apple cider and creepy decorations. And costumes.”

Ben scoffs at that last part. The last time he dressed up as something he was not was… well. The day he moved out here, actually, begging his uncle to take him in and to give him a job.  _ Any _ job. 

If he thinks about it, in truth he puts on a costume every single day he does one of these hayrides. For better or worse.

But somehow, a Halloween party is  _ different. _ He can’t think of anything he wants to do less than attend a Halloween party with people he does not know, dressed up as a vampire or a storm trooper or some other ridiculous thing.

He briefly considers lying to her. Telling her he’s allergic to synthetic spider webs, or to apple cider, or that he has an urgent matter that will take him out of town this weekend and he’s so sorry but he just isn’t going to make it.

But she’s just...  _ watching _ him with her big, guileless eyes, waiting for him to answer her question. Hoping he’ll say yes.

It’s her eyes that pull the response from him before he even realizes it.

“I’d love to come,” he says, surprised to realize that he means it. 

Rey steps closer to him, her smile a beam of light on a blustery day.

“Good.” She reaches into her purse and pulls out a slip of paper and a pen. “I don’t have my phone with me right now or I’d text it to you. But—here’s my number.”

She scribbles something on the back of the paper and hands it to him.

_ Rey Niima _

_ (617) 555-1846 _

He stares down at it so long the letters and numbers turn into indecipherable squiggles in front of his eyes.

By the time he looks up again the bus is gone, ferrying Rey and the children back to town.

The walk back to the barn is a cold one, but Ben’s never felt so warm.

* * *

Ben stares at the paper with Rey’s phone number after his evening chores are done, after his uncle has gone to bed and he’s all alone in his little bedroom. He leans back against the headboard of his bed and traces the letters of her name, over and over again, with the tip of his finger.

Rey’s handwriting is atrocious. Barely even legible, really—which isn’t something he’d have expected of someone who works with young children.

Somehow, though, her messy scrawl just endears her to him more.

He could teach her how to write properly, if she wanted him to. He could teach her how to hold a pen so that her words flow from the end of it like poetry. 

After nearly thirty minutes of hemming and hawing he finally makes up his mind to just fucking  _ do  _ it already.

He grits his teeth and types out a text.

_ Hi. This is Ben. _

And then, just in case she knows a lot of Bens, he adds:

_ From the farm. _

He stares at the words, trying to ignore the way it feels like his heart is about to beat its way out of his chest. He tries to remind himself what his therapist used to tell him, in the weeks before he finally got up the courage to leave his old life behind—that even he deserves good things, sometimes.

He swallows hard around the lump in his throat, thinks— _ here goes nothing _ —and hits send.

Rey’s reply comes a few minutes later:

**Hi Ben. 😊**

He can almost hear her brilliant smile in those two little words, and in the ridiculous smiley-face emoji she included.

And then, a minute later:

**I’m glad you texted.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still Halloween somewhere... right?

“You have got to be kidding me.” 

Luke sits at the table in Skywalker Farms’ large kitchen with his coffee mug clutched in both hands, staring at Ben like he’s just sprouted a second head.

“What?” The question comes out more hostilely than Ben intended. He hadn’t thought it was possible to be more self-conscious about his costume than he already was—but then, he can always count on Uncle Luke to prove him wrong. 

Luke doesn’t answer him. He simply stares at Ben for another few seconds in silence. Then, he throws back his head and laughs like someone just told him the funniest joke he’s ever heard.

“That bad?” Ben asks weakly. 

Luke shakes his head, still chuckling to himself, and pours himself more coffee from the pot on the table. Before coming to Skywalker Farms Ben thought  _ he _ had a caffeine problem. And all things considered he probably does—but he’s got nothing on his uncle, who drinks strong black coffee in the evenings to unwind as often as he drinks it in the morning to wake up. Ben has no idea how Luke’s stomach isn’t riddled with ulcers by this point given the sheer volume of caffeine and acetic acid he’s been pouring down his throat for years.

“Nah, your costume’s great,” Luke assures him. He pats the seat beside him, motioning for Ben to sit awhile. Ben ignores him and stays where he’s standing, arms folded tightly across his chest. He’s so nervous right now he feels about five seconds away from flying apart at the seams. The last thing he needs is a heart-to-heart with his uncle.

“If my costume looks great, why were you laughing?” 

Luke sighs, and puts his mug down on the table in front of him. 

“It’s not that you look bad,” he says. “It’s just I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“Doing what?”

Luke raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

Ben looks down at himself and his costume, frowning.

“What’s so weird about me dressing up as a scarecrow for Halloween?”

“What  _ isn’t _ weird about you dressing up as a scarecrow for Halloween?”

Ben sighs and runs a hand over his face, an old nervous tic even leaving New York hasn’t broken him of. He remembers, too late, that he’d drawn black circles beneath his eyes earlier tonight to make his costume look more authentic. His hand comes away smudged with streaks of black eyeliner. 

_ Fuck. _

Now he’s going to have to redo it.

“I suppose a scarecrow isn’t really very  _ me _ , is it,” Ben admits. He figured as much when he decided on the costume—but he  _ did  _ have overalls handy and hadn’t been inclined to go to much effort in making something new.

“To put it mildly.”

“Should I have gone for something scarier, maybe? Something like… I don’t know.” He trails off, trying to think. Has he fucked this up already, before he’s even gotten to the party? “Like a vampire or something?” 

“You would have looked just as  _ not _ -you as a vampire as you do as a scarecrow.” Luke shakes his head. “Believe me, there’s no one happier than I am that you’re finally taking to country living, but...”

“I am  _ not _ taking to country living.”

“Right,” Luke says. “Well, in that case, my point stands. What the hell is going on?”

Ben feels his cheeks start to grow hot. 

How does he begin to explain Rey to his uncle? How does he tell Luke he’s been thinking about her more often than is probably sane ever since meeting her here three weeks ago? Or that they’ve been texting almost every night, and he’s been jerking off more frequently these days than he has at any point since high school—and when he does it, he always thinks of her?

How does he tell him that the real reason he’s making an idiot of himself tonight because he thinks he might actually be falling for her? 

He doesn’t.

He can’t.

“I was invited to a party tonight,” he says instead. He shrugs like it’s no big deal. Like he goes to parties every night of the fucking week. “Thought it might be fun.”

Luke looks skeptical. “My nephew. Dressing up like a character from the Wizard of Oz for a townie Halloween party.” He pauses. “Having fun.”

“Maybe I’ve... turned over a new leaf.”

“Not possible.”

For some reason, that irks him. “You don’t know that.”

Luke shrugs. “I call them like I see them, kid.”

Just then, the alarm on Ben’s phone pings. He’d set it to go off when he had thirty minutes left to get ready for Rey’s party. Not that he was ever in any danger of forgetting about her party, of course. But in case an emergency came up with a horse, or a tractor, or something, he wanted to have a ready excuse to stop whatever he was doing and leave the farm.

Right now, he’s immensely grateful for his prior foresight—and for a ready excuse to leave this irritating conversation.

“I’ll see you later,” Ben mutters, making his way out of the kitchen.

He’s only thirty minutes away from seeing Rey again. It’s possible that the cat costume she mentioned she’d be wearing tonight has figured prominently in his fantasies as he’s touched himself.

He doesn’t tell his uncle that, either. 

* * *

Ben has not been to a real Halloween party in at least a decade. Not since college, probably—though the years after law school have sort of bled together by this point and he can’t quite be sure.

Snoke and Palpatine used to do a Halloween party every year, of course—horrible formal affairs in their penthouse where costumes were elaborate and mandatory. But those hardly count. In any event, spending any amount of time outside of work with the people he worked with used to make Ben’s skin crawl. After his first year as an associate Ben always found convenient excuses to get out of them.

The online articles Ben studied this week about millennial Halloween parties all suggested that showing up on time to a party like this is bad form. The last thing he wants to do tonight is make a bad impression before he’s even walked in the door, and so Rey’s party is already in full swing by the time Ben pulls up in front of her house at eight-thirty.

Loud music he does not recognize pours out of the little house that corresponds with the address Rey gave him last night. A sick, twisting feeling is starting to take root in the pit of his stomach, reminding him—as if he were not already intimately aware of it—that right now he is in completely over his head.

That feeling only intensifies when he is greeted at the door by a man nearly a foot shorter than he is, dressed—as near as Ben can guess—as some kind of post-modern cowboy.

“Hey! A scarecrow,” he says happily. Now that he’s heard his voice Ben vaguely recognizes him as one of the baristas at  _ Maz’s.  _ He’s slurring his words a little and clutching a bottle of LaBatts in each hand. He offers him one. “Welcome to Chez Reynn.”

Ben stares at him. “What is  _ Chez Reynn _ ?”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, this is Rey’s and Finn’s house,” the guy explains. “Put them together and it makes  _ Reynn _ .”

“I see,” Ben says. Meanwhile, his blood is boiling at the thought that Rey lives with someone he hadn’t known about. Who is  _ Finn _ ? Not that it matters. And not that he has any right to be angry, or any claim on Rey. 

“No thanks,” Ben adds, nodding at the beer. Even if he hadn’t sworn off alcohol when he fled New York he would never  _ intentionally _ put something as terrible as LaBatts into his body. “But thanks.” 

“Are you friends with Rey, or Finn?” the cowboy asks. “I’m guessing Rey, right? Because Finn tells me everything and I  _ know _ he would have mentioned it if he’d invited someone that looks like you.” His eyes roam over Ben’s body, taking him in from head to toe before giving him a meaningful wink.

“Um,” Ben says, suddenly feeling incredibly uncomfortable.  _ What kind of party is this? _ He reaches up to rub a hand over his face before remembering his fucking makeup again at the last minute. He drops his hand to his side. “Rey invited me.” 

A moment later Rey appears as if out of thin air, dressed like a cat just like she said she’d be. Her costume is little more than a simple black bodysuit, with a makeshift tail attached to her cute bottom that he  _ absolutely _ is not looking at right now, and a headband with black ears perched on her head. It isn’t a particularly revealing costume; it isn’t over-the-top sexy the way Halloween costumes can sometimes be. But the bodysuit fits her snugly, hugging her slender curves in all the places Ben longs to touch her. 

For the first time ever he’s glad his Skywalker Farms’ overalls fit him as loosely as they do. Especially at the crotch. An entire night with Rey dressed the way she is and he’d be sure to make a fool of himself otherwise.

“You came,” Rey says to him, sounding happy and a little breathless. Her cheeks are rosy and her eyes are brighter than he’s ever seen them. Ben wonders, briefly, if she’s been drinking. Either way, the way she’s looking at him right now—like she’s truly, genuinely happy to see him—pulls a smile from him before he even realizes it’s happening. 

He doesn’t know why smiles come so easily to him when Rey’s around. He only knows that they do.

“I came,” he agrees. And then he starts to panic. Did she not think he was going to come? “I mean… I said I’d come. Didn’t I?”

Instead of answering him Rey gives the cowboy an odd look Ben can’t quite interpret.

“Finn was looking for you, Poe.”

“He was?”

“Yes.” She smirks at the cowboy—Poe, apparently—and gives him a playful punch on the shoulder. “Or at least, he said for me to tell his boyfriend to ‘ _ stop ogling the hotty who just showed up and bring him another beer. _ ’”

Poe laughs at that, but Ben pays him no mind. Hearing Rey call him a  _ hotty _ —even if she was just passing on a message from someone else—has sent his blood pressure soaring into the stratosphere. It’s suddenly way too hot in this room, and he swallows, trying desperately to focus on anything and everything in this room that isn’t her.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Rey says, a moment later. Ben blinks, suddenly realizing that that Poe guy isn’t here anymore. She puts her hand on his arm and gives it a gentle squeeze, the way she did that first day on the farm when she’d wanted him to join her for Luke’s stupid ghost story. It got his attention then; it has his full, undivided attention now. Every cell in his body is attuned to her, to the way her hand feels on his arm, soft and insistent and so very  _ Rey _ . 

He couldn’t leave this party right now, or even look away from her, if he tried. 

His stomach does an odd little flip with the enormity of that realization.

“I’m glad I’m here too,” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t betray just how much he means it.

* * *

The tour of Rey’s little house doesn’t take long. 

There’s the small living room, all done up in tacky Halloween decorations they must have gotten at the Target in Forest Hill, complete with a large plastic tub balancing precariously on a card table that looks far too rickety to support its weight. 

Rey laughs when she catches Ben’s skeptical look.

“For apple bobbing, later,” Rey explains. “Finn’s idea.” She rolls her eyes, suggesting she doesn’t think much of Finn’s idea, either.

The bulk of the party is gathered in the small kitchen, where Poe and a man who might be Finn are ladling something pink and—if Ben’s research into millenial Halloween parties is accurate—probably extremely alcoholic into red plastic Solo cups. A young woman dressed as some kind of pirate or something is scribbling names on all the cups with a black sharpie. 

Everyone is talking and laughing and happy, and in spite of himself Ben is reminded uncomfortably of some of the stupider parties he attended back in college during his single, regrettable year spent in a fraternity. 

“Rey!” the man who might be Finn shouts when he sees them. His eyes are overbright with the alcohol Ben’s pretty sure everyone in this party has already been drinking. He holds out a cup to her with a shaky hand. “We made another batch of the stuff.”

Rey smiles and shakes her head. “No thanks, Finn.” She glances shyly up at Ben, then looks down at her shoes. “I want to keep a clear head tonight.”

For reasons that escape Ben, Poe bursts out laughing.

“More ‘Sneaky Pete’ for us I guess,” Finn says sharply, glaring at Poe. He elbows him, hard, in the ribs. But that only makes Poe laugh harder.

And then, to Ben’s surprise, Rey grabs his hand. She’s touched his arm before but never his hand. Why did she just grab his hand? She twines their fingers together and... Ben doesn’t know what to do with this. He doesn’t know what to do with this  _ at all _ .

“Let’s go,” she says, her voice urgent and clear.

Ben blinks at her, stunned. “Where?” he asks. Though it doesn’t matter, because he’s here and Rey’s here and she is  _ holding his hand _ . Right now he would follow her anywhere.

“My room,” she says, and Ben’s heart stops beating. “It’s quieter in there.”

* * *

Rey’s right.

Her room is quieter.

It isn’t exactly a  _ sound-proof _ room—the laughter and half-drunk merriment can still be heard through her closed bedroom door—but at least now it’s muted, to the point where Ben can’t really make out what anyone out there is saying anymore. 

When Rey closes the door and then turns to face him he is suddenly terrified that now they don’t have rowdy school children or drunken friends to deal with they will actually be able to have a real conversation.

That must have been why she’d brought him in here.

Rey crosses the room, and sits down on the edge of her bed. It’s a queen-sized bed, large enough for two people, which Ben absolutely does not notice or care about whatsoever. She gazes at Ben with such a blistering, expectant intensity in her eyes it makes his palms sweat.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” she says, bluntly.

His eyes widen. “Okay?” He leans back against the closed bedroom door, a bit stunned. “Have you… um. Have you not been honest with me until this point?”

“Oh.” She smiles and shakes her head. “No. I mean… yes. Yes, Ben. I’ve been honest with you. Everything I’ve ever said to you is completely true.” She stands up again and moves closer to him.  _ Much _ closer to him. Less than a few inches of charged space are all that remain between them when she says, on a murmur, “I just mean that I have  _ more _ things I want to be honest about.”

Her eyes fall deliberately to his lips. 

_ Oh. _

Ben swallows. It’s been a very long time since he’s been alone with a woman in her bedroom, or done anything remotely like this. And he’s never been any good at knowing what women wanted. But even he, idiot that he is, is pretty sure he knows what happens next.

He licks his lips reflexively. 

“What is it you want to say, Rey?”

Her eyes meet his. “I like you, Ben.” She leans in to him a little more, and rests the palms of her hands flat on his chest. The feel of her hands on his body, the heated  _ look _ she gives him—it all goes straight to his groin. “I like you a lot.”

_ I don’t know why _ , he thinks instinctively, but does not say.

“You do?” His voice cracks on the words like a fucking teenager. He winces, then clears his throat. “I mean… um.” He closes his eyes. God, what a mess he is. “I… mean I... like you too.”

Rey huffs out a breathy laugh. She looks relieved. “Good,” she says. “I’m glad.” 

She reaches up and winds her fingers through his hair, tugging on it a little so that his face tilts down. He’s never realized just how many nerve endings there are on his scalp. It feels like his entire universe is centered right in the place she is touching him. 

She leans in even closer, until her mouth is just a hair’s breadth away from his. He can feel each of her shaky exhalations as warm little puffs of air on his lips, and he is suddenly certain he isn’t going to survive this.

He gazes down at her, at her nose with the smattering of freckles across it and the hazel eyes that are laughing up at him, and—

Kissing Rey is like air in his lungs, or blood in his veins. The slide of her lips against his is crucial, now that he knows what it’s like, her sweet warm breath on his lips and her hands in her hair as vital to his survival as oxygen.

She shoves him up against the wall of her bedroom, her slender arms winding around his neck as she presses her body against his. He can feel  _ so much _ through the thin fabric of her bodysuit—the jutting prominence of her hip bones; her breasts, and their hardening little peaks. Despite the fact that they are very much not alone right now—despite the fact that there are so many people just outside this bedroom door that it’s impossible to distinguish one blurry conversation from another—Ben has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants to tear her silly costume off of her... and feel everything.

His hands slide down her back until he is cupping the soft globes of her ass in both hands. They fit so neatly and perfectly in his palms, and it is the easiest thing in the world to squeeze them, listening to her breath hitch gorgeously in her throat as he pulls her even closer.

“Rey,” he breathes, against her lips. She traces his bottom lip with the tip of her tongue, seeking entrance into his mouth with a tiny little mewling sound in the back of his throat that nearly undoes him. 

But if something is going to happen between them tonight, it can’t happen here. Not with Poe and Finn and all of Rey’s rowdy friends just outside.

It takes all of his willpower to pull away from her in that moment and whisper—”Let’s go... somewhere else.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’ll be fun,” Rey says, laughing a little under her breath. And while Ben doubts very much that having sex in this old barn will be as fun as, say—having sex inside, in a comfortable bed, would be—the fact that Rey wants to have sex with him at all means he really doesn’t have any grounds for complaint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3

Ben looks around for any sign of his uncle before unlocking the door to the barn.

His hands shake as he fumbles the keys.

“I can’t believe you want to do this here,” he murmurs, as he lets them in. And it’s true; he really _ can’t _ believe she wants to do this here. But Rey’s arms are still wrapped tight around his waist, her lips are doing something _ indescribable _at the nape of his neck, and Ben is harder than he’s been at any point in recent memory.

In short: he is in absolutely no position right now to deny Rey anything she wants. Even if what she wants is to have sex in an old barn.

“It’ll be fun,” Rey says, laughing a little under her breath. And while Ben doubts very much that having sex in this old barn will be as fun as, say—having sex inside, in a comfortable bed, would be—the fact that Rey wants to have sex with him at all means he _ really _ doesn’t have any grounds for complaint.

“Are you sure don’t want to go inside?” he tries again. When she shakes her head no he asks, mystified, “_ Why _ don’t you want to go inside?”

At that, she steps away from him. She grabs his hands and spins him so that they’re facing each other. Her eyes are two dark pools, reflecting the light from the sliver of moon streaming in through the open barn door. He wants to drown in them. He wants to give her everything.

Instead of answering Rey tugs him down to the rough piles of hay that cover the ground.

“I want to make sure we’re alone for this,” she explains. She leans back against one of the barn walls for support and he watches, mesmerized, as she pulls her arms free of the sleeves of her catsuit costume. “You didn’t want to be interrupted or overheard by my roommates._ I _ don’t really want to bump into your uncle.”

Ben’s eyes go wide. “Neither do I.” 

“Good,” Rey says. She smirks at him, and leans forward, gently tracing his bottom lip with the pad of her little finger. Before sneaking out of Rey’s party Ben had spent a few frantic minutes in her bathroom with a washcloth, trying to wipe off as much of his stupid scarecrow makeup as he could. But she was already coaxing him out of the bathroom and out the back door before he was able to get all of it off. He suspects his face is now a disaster of smeared black and orange face paint.

But if it is, Rey doesn’t seem to mind. She doesn’t seem to mind _ at all _. She’s been kissing him for over an hour now—his cheeks, his lips, his neck, anywhere and everywhere she can touch—and it isn’t long at all before she replaces the finger that’s tracing his lip with her sweet mouth. 

Then she’s kissing him again, tender and slow, gently sucking on his bottom lip. Ben rewards her with a quiet groan.

He never wants this moment to end.

“Wait,” she mumbles, pulling back a little just as he tries to deepen the kiss. She puts a palm flat on his chest, wordlessly asking him to stop. “Hold on a minute.” 

He blinks at her stupidly as she pulls minutely back, his mind fuzzy and slow and wondering, distantly, what he’s done wrong. 

Without another word Rey stands, and tugs her black bodysuit all the way down to her waist. She’s wearing the_ tiniest _ black bra underneath it; the lacy cups barely even cover the round swell of her pretty little tits. The twin urges to pull the bra’s thin straps down and off her shoulders, and to cover her bare breasts with his hands, nearly overwhelm him. After so much kissing and holding and touching her over her clothes, Ben’s hands _ itch _ with the urge to touch her everywhere.

He balls his hands into fists at his sides as he waits, watching Rey as she stands there, watching him, her eyes big and round and full of so much compassion and shy wonder.

Ben doesn’t know what will happen after tonight. He knows Rey doesn’t want to stay in Forest Hill; and after New York, Ben doesn’t know when he might find the courage to leave. But when Rey unhooks the front clasp of her bra and lets the little scrap of silky fabric fall to the ground—when she steps closer, and presses her bare breasts into his waiting hands—Ben thanks every god who might be listening that at least they have _ this. _

“Kiss me,” she whispers.

The night air is chilly, and her nipples quickly pebble up against his palms as he leans forward and eagerly captures her mouth in a bruising, needful kiss.

* * *

The last time Ben remembers being happy—really, _ truly _ happy—he’d been eleven years old, in the middle of a months-long visit to Skywalker Farms. His parents sent him here to spend time with his uncle the summer they finally put an end to their horrible, acrimonious marriage, and Ben remembers being surprised at how peaceful it was in the country, and how little he missed the noise and crowds of New York. He ran wild in the woods and in the fields that summer, helping Luke with the animals and the farm equipment whenever his uncle asked him to. 

It only seems fitting, somehow, that he would find happiness again on Skywalker Farms twenty years later—here, with Rey.

His jacket is spread out on the ground beneath them as she climbs on top of him. The rest of their clothes lie in a discarded heap off in a corner of the barn, and she’s looking at his cock with wide eyes. Ben can’t tell if she’s nervous about what they’re about to do, unimpressed—or both.

“What is it?” he asks when she just keeps... _ looking _at him, unable to keep the tremor out of his voice. She is ethereal in the pale moonlight, and he is pale and freckled and full of flaws, and—

She wraps her slender hand around his cock and begins to pump him—slowly, firmly—and all of the blood in his body that isn’t already in his cock rushes south. He bites his lip to stifle his groan as she slides her palm along his length, not quite getting the pressure or the tempo right but making it ten times hotter and better because she _ isn’t _ getting them right. Because it’s _ Rey _ that’s touching him, _ Rey _ that’s already gotten him so close to the brink he’s afraid he’s going to lose it if she keeps it up much longer, _ Rey _that’s scooting forward a little and lining him up at her entrance—

It’s Rey who grabs firm hold of him, and with some effort finally slips his tip inside of her, tearing a garbled litany of curses and moans from Ben’s throat.

“You’re gonna need to give me a minute,” she gasps, sounding winded. She inches forward just a little, every nerve ending in Ben’s body centered in his almost painfully hard cock. She is in his bloodstream. Every gasping breath he takes is full of nothing but _ her _ . “You’re... _ really _ big.”

He distantly registers the compliment, and can feel himself swell impossibly larger inside her.

“Rey,” he grits out. His fingertips dig hard into the soft, yielding flesh of her hips as she slowly, methodically, takes him into her body. She lifts herself up, then sinks back down, over and over again, taking him inside her inch by agonizing inch, until at last he is at a full seat inside her, hot and tight and pulsing wetly around him. 

It is an _ agony _ not coming immediately. Ben squeezes his eyes shut tight because although he wants, desperately, to look at her—to watch her as she starts, tentatively, to ride him—he knows that one look at her beautiful face, her tits, her perfect little cunt that grips him so well, will snap his fragile restraint in two, and send him careening helplessly over the edge.

“You make it so much better here for me,” Rey breathes into his ear, as she moves over him. Her words, the feel of her sweet breath against his cheek, shoot all the way down his spine. His cum churns in his balls, and his impossibly tight grip on her hips tightens further. “You… you give me something to look forward to.”

“_ Rey. _ ” Her name is a whimper, a broken word on his tongue. He wants to tell her that she makes _ everything _ so much better, for him, but her sweet little cunt is beginning to flutter irresistibly around him and all of his powers of speech are long gone. “Rey. I can’t—”

“So good to me,” Rey continues, gasping now, her movements speeding up. “So… so grumpy with everyone else. But so good and kind to me.” She pauses. “You’re so _ good _, Ben.” 

As she continues to fuck him into oblivion Rey leans forward and teasingly traces the shell of his ear with the tip of her tongue. The angle of her movements changes slightly, and the world contracts until there is nothing left but the feel of Rey’s tongue on his ear, and her sweet, slippery cunt gripping and squeezing and working him.

“Rey,” Ben says one last time, the single syllable a plea and a prayer all at once. And then before he can warn her he is coming, hot frissons of blinding white pleasure tearing through him as his cock pulses deep inside her body. He is distantly aware of her crying out above him, of her fumbling clumsily at her clit with the pad of her thumb, but by the time he comes fully back to himself she has collapsed on top of him, panting heavily into his neck.

He’ll make it up to her, he decides, as his heavy arms come up to wrap around her body and hold her closer. 

He’ll make it up to her a thousand times, if she’ll let him.

* * *

He drives her back home shortly before dawn.

“You could have stayed longer,” Ben says, pulling up alongside the curb in front of her little house. There are still a half-dozen cars parked along the street here and in the driveway, but no lights are on inside. Ben wonders just how many of her friends ended up crashing here overnight. 

He puts the car in park and kills the engine. “I would have made you breakfast and everything, he adds.”

Rey leans across the car and kisses him, gently, on the lips. 

“I was getting cold, Ben.”

“You could have stayed in my room,” Ben points out, trying hard to keep the petulance he feels out of his voice. God, he has _ no _ reason to complain right now. About anything. “We could have had a bed. And blankets.” 

But Rey only smiles, and kisses him again, and he _ knows _ he’d had another point to make, a _ good _ point—but he can still taste the exquisite way she’d fallen apart on his tongue half an hour ago, and it’s pretty hard to think about anything other than that right now.

When she pulls back a moment later, Rey says, “Next time.” She reaches behind her and unlocks the passenger’s side door. 

Ben pulls back to look at her. She’s gazing up at him through her eyelashes. Her expression is playful. Teasing.

He swallows, his heart hammering in his ribcage. He can hear what she’s implying, but not saying, in those two little words. 

“Next time?” he breathes.

She nods. Her smile grows. “Next time,” she says again. “I promise.”

Ben may not know what six months from now may bring. But there’s going to be a_ next time. _

As he watches Rey make her way up her driveway and into the house, he decides that’s a compromise he can live with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me on twitter at [jeenonamit](https://twitter.com/jeenonamit/)!  
Or on tumblr, also at [jeenonamit](https://jeenonamit.tumblr.com/).


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